Announcing the 2020 Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement Working Group

March 6, 2019

From Edelgard Wulfert, PhD - Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

Sheila Seery - Vice President, Government and Community Relations

This coming semester, a number of UAlbany faculty and staff will be assisting in the preparation of the University’s application for the 2020 Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement. Carnegie Classification is the highest standard of recognition for community engagement efforts among institutions of higher education. 

Co-chairing the Carnegie Classification Working Group will be Janine Jurkowski, Professor of Health Policy, Management & Behavior and Associate Dean for Public Health Practice in the School of Public Health, and Alfredo Medina, Jr., Executive Director of the Office for Public Engagement.  

I am pleased to announce that Professor Jurkowski has joined the Provost’s Office on a part-time basis for the remainder of the 2018-19 academic year as Provost Fellow for Publicly Engaged Scholarship. In that role, she will lead an effort to revise the tenure and promotion language on the Provost website to include community-engaged scholarship. She will lead the community-engaged faculty scholarship section of the Carnegie application, which is being submitted by the university for the purpose of being designated a community-engaged campus. During this process she will be interviewing faculty across the campus to identify exemplars to be featured in the application. 

Janine and Alfredo will rely on a team of publicly engaged faculty and professional staff for assistance in completing the Carnegie Classification self-study and subsequent application due in April 2019. The following members of the UAlbany community have been named to serve on the Carnegie Classification Workgroup: 

  • Martha Asselin, Director, Center for Leadership and Service
  • Meghan Cook, Program Director, Center for Technology in Government (CTG)
  • Duncan Cumming, Associate Professor of Music, College of Arts and Sciences
  • Debra Gelinas, Assistant Vice Provost for Experiential Learning
  • Matthew Grattan, Director of Community & Economic Development
  • Eric Hardiman, Chair, MSW Program and Associate Professor, School of Social Welfare
  • Jack Mahoney, Assistant Vice President for Academic and Resource Planning
  • Debernee Privott, Assistant Dean for Public Engagement and Director of the University in the High School Program, College of Arts and Sciences
  • Terri Scalise-Roller, Director of Corporate Engagement
  • Annalisa Scimemi, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences
  • John Schwaller, Professor, Department of History, College of Arts and Sciences
  • Sheri Stevens, Director, Community Public Service Program
  • Charlie Voelker, Associate Athletic Director of External Affairs, Athletics 

In applying for Carnegie Classification colleges and universities are required to submit extensive documentation that describes the nature and extent of their engagement and service activities and demonstrates their strong institutional commitment to strengthening the bonds between campus and community. In the coming weeks, members of the working group may be reaching out to you for information and data related to your unit’s engagement and service activities and initiatives. Please do your best to accommodate their requests; submitting a thorough and successful Carnegie application is an important indicator of the progress we are making in addressing the strategic engagement and service priorities identified in the University’s Strategic Plan for 2018-2023.

If you have any questions about the work of the committee, or would like to learn more about Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement, please don’t hesitate to contact Professor Jurkowski or the staff of the Office for Public Engagement: Alfredo Medina, Jr., Executive Director, and Mary Hunt, Manager of Programs.